Weird Tech: Get your gadgets free, become an MP

The rest of us might have to pony up for gadgets, and then pay tax for doing so, but lucky Brit MPs can get the whole lot free. The government has published a list of items Members of the Parliament can claim as expenses.

These include being able to blow £750 on hi-fi, £750 for a TV and £270 for a DVD recorder. Add up the individual items on the so-called ‘John Lewis list’ - and it appears that the Right (dis)Honorable ones can claim up to £23k a year. Not bad when you consider that UK MPs also get annual salaries of £180,000.

It is a shame though that they only get £150 a year to spend on new computer equipment, an amount so paltry it isn’t enough to buy a French Maid Skirt PC case. Bless.

High tech shed

MPs looking for high-spec second homes in the capital might want to have a gander at the des res Alan Cook has built in his back garden. The 9ft x 6ft shed has everything from a big screen TV to a beer-filled fridge, plus SkyHD, a mini games, games console and broadband internet connection. Best of all, Mrs Cook isn’t even remotely miffed, as Alan explained to Shedblog.co.uk:

“My wife always joked that I used to spend more time in the shed than I did with her. However once she realised I could keep all my boys toys under one roof, whilst she had run of the house without me getting under her feet, she soon realised what a bonus it was.”

Still if Alan ever gets bored of his shed, maybe he could consider taking up a new hobby - like the man who made a picture of The Last Supper using 69,550 stills from sci-fi geek fest Star Wars on his PC. The whole thing took Avinash Arora two weeks to complete, resulting in a 262-megapixel mosaic. Well done that man!

That’s not as strange though as some of the images captured by roaming camera cars for Google Street View. The images, collected by The Times, apparently show a giant robot attack, full-scale alien invasion, Borat peeking of a window and “strange, headless figures next to what looks like a newly dug grave.”

And finally there’s the strange case of Mr Jonathan Lee Riches, who filed a lawsuit against Apple for “sexual harassment with Apple gadgets”. Riches claims someone tried to stick an iPhone where the sun doesn’t shine, only to then retract the claim one month later, saying it had all been a dream.

Riches is no stranger to frivolous lawsuits, having filed them against George W Bush and Britney Spears and Elvis Presley among others. He also claimed last September that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was trying to kill him, having hired OJ Simpson as a hitman in 1985.